


you are just one of my phases

by tryslora



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Anchors, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Community: fullmoon_ficlet, Full Moon, M/M, Past Ethan/Jackson Whittemore, Stiles Stilinski is Jackson Whittemore's Anchor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-11 00:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18671140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: When Jackson's sober and unhappy, he texts his ex, Ethan. When he's drunk on the full moon, his wolf always,alwaysseeks out Stiles. Maybe he needs to figure that out.





	you are just one of my phases

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Fullmoon Ficlet Prompt #326 - Compel. I was in the car yesterday and the song "Phases" came on Spotify and I thought about the idea of it not just being once, about being drunk on the moon and drunk-dialing that one person that the wolf wants. Then I thought about Lydia's attempt at a compelling argument to just DEAL WITH IT already. And thus, we're here.

“You need to stop.”

Jackson looks up as Lydia leans over him, using every inch of her petite height to intimidate him while he’s sitting. He stretches his arms over his head, slouches down a little more. “I need to stop what, Lydia? I’m not actually doing anything at the moment.”

“Whatever you are doing with Stiles,” she says, words sharply clipped. “Every fucking moon. Fucking him. You need to stop fucking with his heart.”

Oh.

That.

He keeps his smile bland as he watches her. “And again I say—I’m not doing anything. In fact, we aren’t doing anything. We’ve made it clear to each other that it’s just moon-inspired sex. It’s not as if we like each other. We aren’t even friends.”

They don’t associate with each other outside of pack meetings, and even there, unless it’s the full moon, Jackson can’t recall having a single civil conversation since he returned from London.

“You’re pack,” Lydia reminds him.

“So are you,” Jackson shoots back. “So’s everyone else. Just because Stiles and I fuck after the full moon runs doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a thing, Lydia. It’s—” He cuts off when she cups his cheek, tilts his face up to look at her. “What?”

“Keep telling yourself that,” she murmurs. “Or maybe you should sit down and think just why your wolf insists on seeking him out every moon. At the moment when you are more id than ego, you find Stiles. Think about it, Jackson.” She pats his cheek, straightens up and moves away, and it’s in that moment that he realizes that his carefully relaxed pose has him shrinking away from her. Hiding.

He sits upright, then pushes himself to standing. Even when he looks down at her, she stands tall, her expression calculating.

She sighs softly, shrugs. “Obviously I cannot compel you, nor convince you it seems. But I do think you should stop fucking with him before you do damage to both yourself and him. And if you think about it with your brain rather than your dick, Jackson, you might realize I’m right.”

She turns on her heel and stalks off, leaving Jackson wondering how she got into his apartment in the first place, since he doesn’t remember ever giving her a key.

#

At the next pack meeting, Stiles is sitting on the edge of the chair that Malia and Scott share. He speaks with wild gestures, Malia ducking when his hand flails out. She catches him, rights him when he tips, and he continues on with enthusiasm.

As soon as Stiles spots Jackson watching, he stutters to a stop, his cheeks flushed, hands dropping.

Lydia coughs.

Jackson exhales roughly and drops his gaze. It takes a moment before he hears Stiles speaking again. Jackson makes a point of getting up slowly, ignoring Stiles in favor of heading into the kitchen and talking to Danny about whether Danny’s new boyfriend is ready to hear about the existence of the supernatural.

It’s a typical pack night, really, with the pack split on these unseen lines. And Jackson’s never felt more like he’s existing on the outskirts than he does right now.

Danny’s in the middle of a sentence when Jackson pulls his phone from his pocket, swipes it open and looks at his texts. It’s been long enough since he spoke to Ethan that he’s no longer on his first page of conversations.

“Hey,” Danny says, one hand over the screen, nudging the phone down. “Don’t text Ethan. It’s been six months, he’s the one who dumped you, and it’s not worth groveling at him when you have better options. He didn’t want to come back to Beacon Hills, and you did. If he’s being pissy about it—”

“I’m not groveling to him, and what makes you think that’s what I was going to do?” Jackson snaps. It is exactly what he was going to do, because even after six months dead, Ethan’s the last good relationship he had. He needs to deal with whatever’s going on inside his own head before the next full moon. Obviously. Or else he’ll just keep dealing the same way he has the last few months.

“When you’re sober and upset, you text Ethan. When you’re drunk on the moon, you fuck Stiles,” Danny says mildly. “Seems to me that Stiles responds better to that than Ethan.”

Jackson looks down; the last time he texted Ethan, the asshole hadn’t even bothered to reply.

He locks his phone and shoves it back in his pocket. “You’re so good for my ego, Danny. What is this fascination you and Lydia have with my relationship with Stiles anyway?”

“Is it a relationship?” Danny counters.

“No.” The answer is automatic. “It’s just sex.”

Three words, short and sharp and far too loud in the small kitchen. And of course, that’s when Stiles is right there, standing in the doorway, hovering before he steps in. He flails backwards when Jackson pins him with his gaze. “I just—” He gestures at the fridge. “Beer.”

Danny opens the fridge, pulls out two bottles and sets them on the island, out of reach of them both. He puts an opener next to them. “Work it out,” he says.

He grips Stiles’s shoulders on the way by, rotating Stiles into the kitchen as Danny goes out. Stiles ends up next to Jackson, and he rocks back before touching him.

“This wasn’t my idea,” Stiles says, his hands up. “I am still operating under the rule of _this never happened_.”

Jackson’s ears go hot at the tips and he remembers the taste of Stiles’s skin under his lips during the last full moon, while he licked a line along his throat and whispered, “When the sun comes up, remember, _this never happened_.”

Fuck.

Jackson reaches for the two bottles, pops the tops and hands one to Stiles. “Don’t get drunk,” he mutters as he takes a long swig. If they’re going to actually be forced to talk about this, they should be sober. Both of them.

“Why? Afraid I won’t be able to keep my hands off of you if I do?” Stiles snarks. “I’m not the one under the influence on a monthly basis.”

“Each time I asked and you said yes,” Jackson hisses back. He keeps his voice low, although he knows that the rest of the pack is still in the house and can easily listen to them. “You could have said no.”

Stiles takes a slow swallow of the beer, then licks his lips. “Yes, the sex was consensual,” he says slowly. “I’m not arguing that, Jackson. But maybe I’m just getting tired of being used as a security blanket and ignored the rest of the time.”

“It’s not about you,” Jackson tells him, doing his best to keep his tone flat. “It’s just a phase.”

For a moment he thinks Stiles isn’t going to get it, that the play on words isn’t worth the fact that it opens him up to a conversation that he’s not sure he’s ready to have.

Stiles takes another slow swallow, coughing as he snorts in the middle of it. “Did you just make a joke?” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Did Jackson Whittemore just make a phase of the moon pun?”

“It’s more of a double entendre,” Jackson mutters.

“Double entendres usually have a dirty meaning.”

“And we usually have extremely dirty sex when the phase of the moon is full.” So maybe Jackson was reaching, but he liked it. He’s not as sharply witty as Stiles, or as terrifyingly intelligent as Lydia. But he’s not stupid, either. And wordplay is a weird kink, but it’s his, and it might be one of the things he finds most attractive things about Stiles.

He drinks the entire bottle of beer in one swallow so he can pretend he didn’t just think that. Even admitting it inside his own head is scary.

“So you’re saying I’m just one of your phases?” Stiles takes a closer step. “Because I’m saying I don’t want to be a full moon fuck, Jackson.”

“What do you want me to say, Stiles?” Jackson sets the beer down, and somehow Stiles gets in even closer, inside Jackson’s personal space. Jackson forgot how tall Stiles got, while Jackson’s growth stalled back in high school. That few inches means having to look up.

Stiles touches Jackson’s cheek, slides his fingers around to the nape of his neck. “Why am I your anchor?” Stiles asks quietly. He leans down, his forehead resting against Jackson’s. “Why the hell am I your anchor?”

“That’s—” Jackson wants to say that it’s not what it means, but he can’t. He’s tired of lying—to himself and to everyone else—even if he doesn’t understand any of it. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Because you make my wolf feel safe. Because when the moon’s full all I can think of is tasting you.”

“I should be glad it’s my dick you want and not my blood, then,” Stiles quips.

They’re talking. This is what both Lydia and Danny said he should do, but Jackson’s already reached his limit on what he thinks he can say before he feels the need to get out of the room. So he shuts himself up by reaching for Stiles, yanking him that little bit closer so Jackson’s mouth meets his.

Stiles makes a small surprised sound, then relaxes into it, pressing Jackson back until they’re against the wall, and Stiles leans into him, kissing him slowly. Jackson grips his shirt, tries to drag him closer, tries to deepen it, but Stiles doesn’t let him. It’s quiet and easy and Jackson can’t help but feel the emotion behind it.

It’s too much.

He pushes Stiles away, wipes his mouth roughly as if he can’t stand to taste Stiles. He hears a small whine, worries that it’s himself, his wolf making himself known. “This is a bad idea,” Jackson mutters.

Everyone sees when he leaves, stalking past the pack in the living room, slamming the door on his way out. He hears the door open and Stiles stands there, watching as Jackson gets into his car and backs out of the driveway before revving the engine and roaring away.

#

The full moon is horrible away from the pack. Jackson paces from one end of his apartment to the other, flinching every time his phone buzzes with another message. He’s glanced at a few of them: Lydia and Danny telling him to get his ass to the pack run, Scott pleading with him to join the pack.

Jackson won’t. He can’t. He has to break this habit here and now before he gets in too deep.

He always texts Ethan when he’s sober and Stiles when he’s moon-drunk. So fine, he’ll switch it up. Jackson grabs for his phone, opens his texts and digs backwards to find the last time he texted Ethan. He types without thinking: _I want to talk to you._

His phone rings.

“No, you don’t,” Ethan says, as soon as Jackson answers.

“Just because I came home—”

“You chose your pack over me.” Ethan’s tone is flat. Angry. And maybe resigned. “You needed them, Jackson. You don’t actually need me, and I need to move on. Remember, I dumped you, because you were never in this as deep as I was.”

“Yes, I was,” Jackson protests.

Ethan laughs dryly. “Every moon, you talked about going home. Every damned moon you went on about Beacon Hills, even though you knew I’d never go back there. Jackson, you love—”

“I don’t love Stiles,” Jackson protests, the moon ripping the name from his lips. “It’s not love. It’s just sex.”

Silence.

“Stiles.” A long pause before Ethan says softly, “I always figured it’d be Lydia. Or maybe Danny, now that you’ve figured out you’re bi. Never thought it’d be Stilinski.”

“It’s not like that.” Even to Jackson the words sound hollow. He’s said it so many times he can’t believe it anymore.

Not when he’s thought it to himself.

Everything keeps coming back to Stiles.

“Jackson,” Ethan says softly. “It’s over between us. It’s been over for a long time more than the six months since I broke up with you. I’m not going to tell you that you need to move on, either, because I think that’s the problem. I think it’s always been Beacon Hills, and I think it’s always been Stiles. It explains a lot.”

“Like what?”

“Think about it.” Ethan’s tone is gentle, almost fond. “We were good for a while, Jackson. But you need to deal with your shit. Good luck with the moon tonight.”

Jackson starts to ask what Ethan’s doing for the full moon, but the line disconnects, hangs empty and silent. And between one breath and the next, the phone starts to ring.

He answers without thinking. “What are you doing for the full moon?”

“Banging on your door and wondering if you really are home,” Stiles says.

“You’re not Ethan.” Because Jackson thought he’d reconsidered hanging up. That he’d called back, it happened so fast.

Stiles laughs, dark and dry. “No, no I’m not, and I never have been. Is that what it was all about? Some kind of replacement? Does your wolf think I smell like him or some stupid shit like that? Never mind then, Jackson, I’m just—”

Shit.

Jackson drops the phone; it clatters on the floor as he makes it to the door in two bounding steps, yanking it open before Stiles finishes the statement. Stiles stands there, mouth slightly open and Jackson reaches out, grabs him and drags him inside, closing the door behind him.

“Um,” Stiles says.

Jackson can feel the moon singing under his skin, soaring now that Stiles is nearby. He reaches more slowly this time, a question in his touch as he tugs Stiles close. Stiles answers with a slow kiss, cautious and ending almost before it begins.

Stiles carefully removes Jackson’s fingers from his collar, and Jackson takes a step back.

“I came over because if I’m your anchor, then you need me here,” Stiles says quietly.

Jackson nods once, crosses his arms to keep from reaching out. “It’ll help.”

“I don’t want to be a phase,” Stiles says, a tiny, humorless laugh on the end of the word. “Jackson, I don’t want to just fuck around. I want a—”

“This is a relationship,” Jackson says, interrupting. “An intensely dysfunctional one, yes, but I’ve never been good at getting it right. Just ask Lydia. Or Ethan. I’m a fuckup, we all know it. And I don’t know how to say that I—” He stutters to a stop, tries again. “That I—I actually like you. Might have for a while, because I’m dense and you’re weird and my wolf still thinks you smell like nirvana so I think I’m stuck with you.”

“We’ll figure out how to make it functional.” Stiles kisses Jackson before he can reply, and everything after that is lost in a haze of sensation as Jackson sinks into the pull of the moon and the presence of his anchor.

#

He wakes into the early morning light when Stiles sits up in bed, the blankets falling to his hips. Stiles slides toward the edge of the bed, but Jackson reaches out, pulls him back.

“It’s too early,” Jackson mumbles, encouraging Stiles to lie down again. “You don’t have to leave.”

“The full moon is over,” Stiles says quietly. “You don’t need me anymore.”

It’s true, the pull of the moon is gone. Jackson’s settled in his skin, his wolf happy and sated. But that doesn’t mean… “You’re wrong,” he replies, tucking Stiles against him more closely. He presses a kiss to the back of Stiles’s neck and when Stiles turns in his arms, Jackson meets his eyes and kisses him slowly.

“The full moon is a phase,” Jackson says carefully. “It’s one phase. There are more. If you’re just a phase, Stiles, you’re all of them for me. So stay. Please.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, relaxing back against Jackson. “Okay. I’ll stay. As long as I’m not just a phase.”

“You’re all of them,” Jackson repeats, pressing the promise against Stiles’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me (mostly silent) on Tumblr as [tryslora](http://tryslora.tumblr.com) and on Pillowfort as [tryslora](https://www.pillowfort.io/tryslora). I also write original fiction! If you like my fic, you might like my original twice-weekly series [Welcome to PHU](http://welcometophu.tumblr.com) (also mirroring on Pillowfort at [Welcome to PHU](https://www.pillowfort.io/community/WelcomeToPHU)).


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